How many times did you fail before you became successful?
 

i am asking for advice from those of you that have done well for yourselves. those that have attained 100k a year and above.

my own personal situation is this....i have always been able to get things done, but i have never been able to capitalize on anything big. i have a talent for big ideas but i haven't been able to cash in.

any advice is appreciated :glugglug

like once maybe twice...

actually musta been atleast 10 times befoer i found what worked for me

I fell once, hard, but I learned many lessons from that about business and people in general :2 cents:

0 times woooo

i'm into my 6th idea now, lol, i feel i may be taking edison's path all the way to 10000 failures before i succeed

lol but are you making over 100k a year? :wetkiss

Too many to remember. I've been busting my hump to make money since I was probably 6 years old. Definately some shit that didn't pan out along the way.

Workin on my big idea now, lets see how it goes :frenchman

you got a good mainstream job, not ?

its not working out as i planned unfortunately. the money is decent but its not over 100k. however i started my own company a few months ago and am now finally starting to promote it. i built it as a back-up plan and now i may need to do it fully.

sometimes i really confuse myself as to what direction i should really go in

Best thing to do Izzy is to partner up with a major player on a joint venture deal.

It will give you more resources and capital to work with, strong networking potential by meeting his contacts and associates, lowers your own risks by sharing the risks on deals, and you can tap his mind for new ideas as well, two minds are always better than one.

Bottom line you'll go further owning slices of a lot of pizza's vs. just one whole pizza you bake yourself.

Best thing to do Izzy is to partner up with a major player on a joint venture deal.

It will give you more resources and capital to work with, strong networking potential by meeting his contacts and associates, lowers your own risks by sharing the risks on deals, and you can tap his mind for new ideas as well, two minds are always better than one.

Bottom line you'll go further owning slices of a lot of pizza's vs. just one whole pizza you bake yourself.

I had many ideas that I put into action that did not take off right away and only held their own after some serious tweeking. there were many times along the way where I looked at things and decided not to give up on them those are as close to failures as I have really allowed.

Maybe I was to stupid or pig headed to give up. I only put into play what I have contemplated and worked on very hard which is why I am less than willing to let it fail unless there is just no way possible I can push it anymore.

To tell you the truth I am new to the 6 figures club so it may be early in the game for me to be talking about failure or lack of, but I am hoping that with my hard work and my logic I can minimize "failure"

Just be smart, never worry about "over" anylization, pick good partners and friends and you will do the best you can.

you love me so much you posted advice twice!!!!!! lol

i have always feared a potential investor in tha past because i dont wish to lose my authority in a project. however maybe its time i looked into it. the problem is finding an investor who i can trust

KRL is on a roll today. Good advice.

In regard to the thread title, I had some success in a field early so it made it easier to step up to the plate and strike out on other business ventures over the past 15 years. I think I only hit on maybe 20% of them. But if you have enough security ($$$) to take a chance without taking a loss then it's no problem. Do what you can to get that security.

KRL made a great point in that it is best to partner up with a major player at first. I wouldn't be where I am if I didn't work for some in the beginning and have them as mentors.

Failure is part of being successful. You need to know what works and what doesn't to make a successful business. Part of that includes failing and figuring out what doesn't work. Once you figure out what does work, its a matter of scaling the operation to a size in which you can sustain a fulltime income and growing from there.

WG

good advice aswell, except i dont have the security of extra income. i have a minimal budget that i've used here and there to tryout past ideas

amen brother canadian:thumbsup i actually did that with my adult biz, i've sold off 75% of my non-profitable domains and am only concentrating on a handful of sites

Not to be trite but I view it as a series of learning experiences. Different situations have definitely not paned out but each one has put me in a better position (through experience or situation) for the next.

I have had 2 job's (working for someone else) in my life and 3 major companies. The latest incarnation has been running now for over 10 years. These days because of the experiences we've had I view it as an evolutionary process. We started in cms dev for corp and gov. and have evolved into our adult media biz. To me it's about having the right people around, with the right people you can do anything.

As for dollars, I'm very proud of the fact that I hit my fist Million per annum at 21. I'm now working on my next set of financial goals for 35 and then 45.

Izzz IMHO you have to get people around you to grow, for you all to succeed. It takes a lot of sacrifice and transitioning from a solo operator to running/working with a team is a big learning curve, but 100% worth it.

Not necessarily an investor who will be passive. What I'd recommend is an active partner who has skills in the areas you feel you don't have.

I have one of my biz partners, for example, in California, who I've been doing deals with for over 20 years. We share a lot of skills, but he has some good ones I don't, and I have some he doesn't, so we compliment each other and our combined energy works well together on deals.

It also gives you a chance to get more time productivity out of each day if you have deal partners, so you don't have to do it all yourself, which is where most guys get bogged down.

I remember reading Thomas Edision did over 800 iterations of the light bulb until he got the one set of components that finally worked together successfully.

Failure is also good to happen every now and then to keep you grounded.

Worst thing is when you are successful quickly and then assume everything you touch is now going to be a golden deal. Biz just doesn't work that way.

Yup, I recently ceased operations on a few mainstream (non-seo) projects that I started years ago. They were time consuming and let's face it making jack shit compared to my adult stuff. Even if it hurts, you gotta cut your losses at some point and focus on things that work. Let's talk in Phoenix :)
WG

Never quit! Learn from your mistakes! Stay Focused and organized!

I have failed more than I have succeeded and made many mistakes along the way but keep pluggin away and learn to not repeat your mistakes.

You will win in time...Never quit!

I love the great advice and positivity in this thread! Keep up your hard work Izzy, it'll pay off!

xoxo

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh
I'll let you know when I become successful. :upsidedow

me too:pimp

i really do appreciate everyone's advice in this thread. it is very difficult for me to see my own faults but reading some of these comments has actually opened my eyes a little. it gives me motivation and for that i really thank you guys

Don't you mean an investor who can trust YOU? They are trusting THEIR money with you, not the other way around :2 cents:

one too many times

honestly, i could never prove on a message board how trustworthy i am, but those that know me outside already know how trustworthy i am when it comes to money.

i've been shit one quite a few times by "big" money boys in this biz with their payments to me and i have learned to only trust a few now. with that being said, i refuse to partner up with anyone i do not trust.

i dont play games and i dont make false promises. if there is an investor out there, that i already may know, that i can trust, then they would already trust me and they would feel comfortable taking that risk with me

but you are still a sexy man :Graucho

Great advice. I've come to the point where I have to much things on my plate and am considering doing some outsourcing for site updates and such. Can I ask you if you use an outsourcing company and who is it? I'm looking for recommendations right now..

I spend lots of time thinking on a project before I put in into work, sometimes this could be 6 months depending on the type of project, research etc... takes up a lot of time. I can't say I failed at any point in my initial idea, things turned out as I expected. However the danger exists in the things you didn't spend time on planning or did not calculate before you started. Those are the dangers wich could make your project fail. But you learn from these mistakes and that is how you get better. If you plan out your idea, put it into work and see that 99% goes like your initial plan, that 1% you didn't think of could make your project fail.
A 20 year old who turns his first project into an absolute succes is an exception and not the standard. The sooner your start out as an entrepreneur the higher your chances will be to succeed in business.
Even with a masters degree from business school you won't be safe. You will also need a portion of luck. There are many factors to take into consideration.
No formula exists to create succes.

hit me with an email . . .

Izz, first things first. There are NO failures, only learning experiences :) If nothing else a *failure* teaches you what doesn't work and narrows the field a bit so you can better hone in on what does work.

You have a lot of good qualities and I do think you have a lot to offer, but you have to be patient. Just keep plugging away at it.

A few years ago I started up this little business that I called Microsoft.

Didn't know what to do it with it. Then some sucker came along and offered me 100$ for my bizz...

I hear he made it grow somewhat

I'm still on my first run at success and so far so good. Just keep trying.

Tell this to all the bankrupt people who were screwed by their business partner(s). You forgot the fact there are tons of scammers and selfish people who would sell their own mother for 100$. I prefer to work alone for this reason. I always worked alone and if needed I paid someone to do the things I wasn't able of doing by myself. Even then the trouble starts when you have to deal with incompetent sub-contracters.
Haven't you noticed the "drama" threads on these boards. Most of the time they are handling about this particular subject. Business partners have benefits but at the same time they are a huge risk. IMO not worth the risk.

Looking for any new projects to partner on? :Graucho

I'm loving this thread... I may have to bookmark it to return to it from time to time when I need to be reminded of some of this stuff. :thumbsup

Ive never really considered myself a success in anything finacially but I keep pluggging away trying to find my sweet spot whereI can be comfortable if not rich. Long as im reasonably happy, bill collectors arent knocking down my door(used to a time when they were) rents paid and the lights are on and theres food in the fridge im having some success. Most days thats enuff for me, even though like everyone else I want more. Thats where the plugging away comes in

I love reading what KRL posts :)

The man knows his stuff :)

Good point :thumbsup

no klikrevenue posts here?

Unfortunately you reach a level of success where it becomes impossible to continue building your enterprises without needing either business partners or staff. I've tried both and I like having partners much more than trying to do it all myself and managing staff myself which is my least favorite thing.

No doubt, you'll have a few shit partners through the years. We all have. But as you become more wise you learn to filter out the probable bad partners from the probable good ones much quicker.

Time is the one thing you can't buy for yourself. The work around is to get other people's time working to benefit your time. And you have to do this if you want to be really major wealthy one day.

Truest words I've seen on GFY in a long time! :thumbsup

I don't know that I would classify them as failures, but as far as "stumbles" quite a few times actually. All in all, however, they made for invaluable learning experiences. :2 cents:

I remember an article a while back that interviewed sucessful business men and women and the average number of failures before a sucess was around 10.

You're on the wrong end of the equation, he's looking for people to finance his projects not the other way around.

you learn so much from each failure that you're destined to make it at some point unless you're a complete idiot.

Unfortunately I tend to agree. I will avoid taking on business partners unless its absolutely necessary. Generally speaking, I'll rather hire or subcontract before partnering with other people. Too many bad experiences that partnerships are very high risk to me.

WG

I'm easily making the coveted six figures, but I did it the old fashion way... going to college, slowly working my way up through companies, with very little risk of failure - with "failure" being working hard for no returns in this sense (or even losing money). Of course, you reach a certain point where you have to put your ass on the line or you hit the ceiling of what you can make. That's where I'm at.